I know it's cool to trash Bay, but I went back over the last week and watched the infamous **** films he's directed (Armageddon, Pearl Harbor) as well as a few others, and I have to say I think a few things are being overlooked.
Most people seem to agree that for action sequences he's not such a bad choice, but it's the non action and overall schlock that makes up the remaining contents of his films that are terrible. While I pretty much agree, I found it noteworthy that he isn't writing these movies. While I'd prefer to see a director who's been a little more choosy with the projects he takes on, I think the fact he isn't wrting these things is important. There's hope that the writing team can do it's work like it should, and Bay just needs to get the imagery across (something I think he's pretty good at.)
With Spielberg being onboard, I'm even a little more confident this movie can be done right.
I'm not going to hate this movie yet just because alt modes have changed. If the story ends up being rich and compelling, I don't so much care if the alt modes have been altered or if the transformers are a little more bionicle than I'm used to or would personally prefer. The individual Transformers are a good mix of unique and diverse characters, and if we can get a well written charcter driven story with good mixes of action, then that to me would be a much bigger sell than seeing them make sure every detail of the film matched G1... right down to the high doses of corniness I've come to notice in hindsight.
Really, as I go back and watch some of the G1 episodes I have a few things become clear to me: a) I can definitely see why I loved them so much when I was a kid and b) you could never get me to pay to see a movie that failed to deviate from G1 where necessary (and in some cases beyond what's necessary) due to it's being so dated now. There was a lot of cheese on that sandwich.......
